View allAll Photos Tagged METAMORPHIC
llustrated metamorphic trade card depicting a "before using" and "while using" scene of children playing inside. Before using, the children are seated and sullen with their heads in their hands because they have holes in their pants and tights. While using, they smile and build a castle. One boy holds a small puppet booth labeled, "Punch & Judy". Advertising text promoting "Children’s patent elastic knee protector" printed on verso below "before using" image, which folds up to create the complete scene.
The stones are of a local metamorphic slate, set in a flattened circle, measuring 32.6 m (107 ft) at its widest and 29.5 m (97 ft) at its narrowest. The heaviest stone has been estimated to weigh around 16 tons and the tallest stone measures approximately 2.3m high.
This boulder is being used as decor at the margin of a parking lot in the Beltline area of Calgary. Within this gneissic, high-grade metamorphic rock, the light-coloured felsic veins (scale: the thickest ones are 1 to 2 cm wide) are deformed (folded and faulted; V-shaped folds right of centre, abrupt faulted termination of felsic vein at upper left).
Copyright J.R. Devaney
Meta-eclogite from Turkey. (~6.0 centimeters across at its widest)
Eclogite is a scarce, crystalline-textured, very high-grade metamorphic rock. It is dominated by green-colored omphacite pyroxene and red-colored pyrope or almandine garnet. Eclogite has the same chemistry as basalts and gabbros, which are oceanic crustal rocks, but has a different mineralogy. Eclogites form by very high grade metamorphism of oceanic crust at mantle depths along subduction zones. Uplift of eclogites back to the surface often involves some retrograde metamorphism and the formation of new minerals, resulting in retrograde eclogites.
The eclogite seen here has been metamorphosed - "meta-eclogite". The green material is smaragdite, which is chromian actinolite amphibole. The grayish matrix is attributed to garnet, quartz?, and feldspar?.
Locality: unrecorded / undisclosed site in Arguvan District, northeastern Malatya Province, eastern Turkey
Landscape boulder in the park across the street. Upon further inspection, I have decided this is part of the common black biotite schist/gneiss quarry rock that forms most of the dry landscape walls in the Denver area.
My favourite exhibit in the current "History in the Making" exhibition at Compton Verney. This set of metamorphic library steps folds away into a writing table. The lower steps fold up against the upper and they slide to the right against the table top. The hand rail catch is released next, allowing that to fold as the table top is lowered into place.
I love the detail of the false lock escutcheons on the fake drawer fronts :)
The tunnel was constructed in the 1950s in metamorphic rock, and for most of the length is unlined, supported only by rock bolts and chain link mesh. One section, about 100-ft long, required initial support by means of steel ribs, and has an 18-inch thick concrete liner for permanent support. It is 542 feet in length, 19 feet 8 inches in height.
Milemarker 333.1
My son and I pulled our bikes off the side of the road to get this shot. I carried the camera in a sweatshirt inside my tank bag for convenience, although it was a pain to stop and start, but it was worth it. I had entertained purchasing a camera mount for the handlebars but was told that a divorce from the wife and kids would follow; will work on it!
Locality: Found in San Domingo Wash near Anderson Mill
This is the bottom side view of: www.flickr.com/photos/usageology/50609221768/in/dateposted/
Left to right foliation in this view is very obvious.
I just love photographing the foothills and Continental Divide this time of year. Within two or three weeks of each side of the Winter's Solstice (Dec. 21st), the sun is at a very low angle of ESE 30 degrees and casts a nice side light upon the foothills and the James Peak Wilderness area. Clouds associated with winter storms accentuate the light even more. Also the foothills glow a reddish orange when the light is just right, due to the iron and feldspar mineral composition of the Precambrian age metamorphic rocks. A light dusting of snow always looks nice on these foothills. Thanks for looking!
View from an enclosed space created by three adjacent hoodoos along the Catalina Highway above Geology Vista. Shot in digital infrared.
The Toposcope at the summit of Worcestershire Beacon, also popularly known as Worcester Beacon, or locally simply as The Beacon, in the Malvern Hills. The summit is at a height of 425 m (1,394 ft) which makes it the highest point of the range of Malvern Hills that runs approximately 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north-south along the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border, although Worcestershire Beacon itself lies entirely within Worcestershire.
The Malvern Hills are a range of hills in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern. The highest summit of the hills affords a panorama of the Severn valley with the hills of Herefordshire and the Welsh mountains, parts of thirteen counties, the Bristol Channel, and the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford.
The name Malvern is probably derived from the ancient British moel-bryn, meaning "Bare-Hill", the nearest modern equivalent being the Welsh moelfryn (bald hill). It has been known as Malferna (11th century), Malverne (12th century), and Much Malvern (16–17th century). Jabez Allies, a 19th Century antiquarian from Worcestershire speculated that 'vern' was derived from the British words 'Sarn' or 'Varn' meaning pavement or seat of judgement.
They are known for their spring water – initially made famous by the region's many holy wells, and later through the development of the 19th century spa town of Great Malvern, a process which culminated in the production of the modern bottled Malvern Water.
The Hills have been designated as a Biological and Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest and as national character area 103 by Natural England and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty by the Countryside Agency (now Natural England). The SSSI notification has 26 units of assessment which cover grassland, woodland and geological sites. The site (The Malvern Hills SSSI (Chase End Hill)) is listed in the 'Forest of Dean Local Plan Review' as a Key Wildlife Site (KWS). Management of the hills is the responsibility of the Malvern Hills Conservators
Flint axes, arrowheads, and flakes found in the area are attributed to early Bronze Age settlers, and the 'Shire Ditch', a late Bronze Age boundary earthwork possibly dating from around 1000 BC, was constructed along part of the crest of the hills near the site of later settlements. The Wyche Cutting, a mountain pass through the hills was in use in prehistoric times as part of the salt route from Droitwich to South Wales. A 19th century discovery of over two hundred metal money bars suggests that the area had been inhabited by the La Tène people around 250 BC. Ancient folklore has it that the British chieftain Caractacus made his last stand against the Romans at the British Camp, a site of extensive Iron Age earthworks on a summit of the Malvern Hills close to where Malvern was to be later established.
J.R.R. Tolkien found inspiration in the Malvern landscape which he had viewed from his childhood home in Birmingham and his brother Hilary's home near Evesham. He was introduced to the area by C. S. Lewis, who had brought him here to meet George Sayer, the Head of English at Malvern College. Sayer had been a student of Lewis, and became his biographer, and together with them Tolkien would walk the Malvern Hills. Recordings of Tolkien reading excerpts from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were made in Malvern in 1952, at the home of George Sayer. The recordings were later issued on long-playing gramophone records. In the liner notes for J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings his The Hobbit & The Fellowship of the Ring, George Sayer wrote that Tolkien would relive the book as they walked and compared parts of the Malvern Hills to the White Mountains of Gondor.
Illustrated metamorphic trade card depicting a before and after bust portrait of a man with a long beard. With the foldout closed, the man frowns through a white beard. With the foldout open, the man smiles through his dyed brown beard. Contains advertising text for R.P. Hall & Co.’s "Buckingham’s Dye" and "Vegetable Sicilian Hair Renewer".
Porcellanite with fractures and black manganese oxide dendrites from the Miocene of the Czech Republic. (cut, polished surface; ~9.0 centimeters across at its widest)
"Porcellanite" is a siliceous sedimentary rock having varying definitions and characteristics. It is a chert-like rock, composed of cryptocrystalline quartz. It supposedly has a non-lustrous, dull and matte appearance, similar to unglazed porcelain (hence the name).
This example is from a quarry in the Czech Republic. At the site, a Miocene-aged, shallow intrusion of trachyandesite has contact metamorphosed mixed siliciclastic sedimentary rocks ("flysch"). The bizarre term "flysch" generally refers to deep-water, interbedded sandstones and shales originally deposited next to a rising mountain range. The flysch in this particular area is part of the Lower Cretaceous Bílé Karpaty Unit. Intense heating from the igneous intrusion has converted some of the flysch's sedimentary rocks into porcellanite.
Geologic context & age: contact metamorphic aureole next to a subvolcanic trachyandesite laccolith, Middle Miocene, ~11-14.7 Ma
Locality: Bučník Hill Quarry, 1.5 to 2 kilometers south-southwest of the town of Komňa, Uherské Hradiště District, southeastern Zlín Region, far-southeastern Czech Republic (48° 58' 46.50" North latitude, 17° 47' 27.28" East longitude)
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Some info. from:
Burianek & Kropac (2019) - Petrogenesis of Miocene subvolcanic rocks in the Western Outer Carpathians (southeastern Moravia, Czech Republic). Journal of Geosciences 64: 105-125.
Water-bathed greenstone makes for a somewhat artsy, abstract photo. The rock is exposed at the base of a small cliff along the shore of Lake Superior in Presque Isle Park, Marquette, Michigan. (The moving water does not allow great sharpness, but I thought it made a nice natural abstract.)
Greenstone is a low-grade regional metamorphic rock that was most likely basalt originally. The green color comes from the ferrous-iron in the minerals chlorite, actinolite and epidote. The rock is spheroidally-altered to secondary rust-colored minerals around the core of greenstone. The white veins are quartz. The rock is Precambrian in age.
PKF10213 c2
kilgoremusic.bandcamp.com/track/metamorphic
"We can not omit ourselves from conduct. This guilt may seem insolvent, only if left unaddressed will it take on such a concept. These words taste of progress, improve upon the process - take it all in context. Beyond civility and conquest. Simpler terms are more expedient in conveying the intention. The final objective
Is to achieve harmony in ones will, intent, and action. One must convey their actualized passion."
Large Gneiss boulder photographed off of the Hardy Lake Loop Trail located in Hardy Lake Provincial Park in Torrance in Muskoka Township Ontario Canada
Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. Gneiss is formed by high temperature and high pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Orthogneiss is gneiss derived from igneous rock (such as granite). Para-gneiss is gneiss derived from sedimentary rock (such as sandstone). Gneiss forms at higher temperatures and pressures than schist. Gneiss nearly all the time shows a banded texture characterized by alternating darker and lighter coloured bands and without a distinct foliation.
Toward Point Lighthouse is on the southern extremity of the Cowal Peninsula, near the village of Toward, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. There has been a lighthouse here since 1812.
Toward Point Lighthouse was completed in 1812. It was built by Robert Stevenson (1772–1850) for the Cumbrae Lighthouse Trust. Two lighthouse keepers' houses were added in the later 1800s. A white building on the foreshore housed the foghorn mechanism, originally a steam engine and then diesel engines. The foghorn was taken out of operation in the 1990s. The keeper's cottages were sold in 2012 and are now a private home.
Toward Point marks the extreme south-westerly point of the Highland Boundary Fault as it crosses the Scottish mainland. The Highland Boundary Fault does not run through Toward Point, but about one kilometre to the west it can be located on the Toward shore by the presence of Serpentinite and the sudden change from younger sedimentary rocks to much older metamorphic rocks, notably Psammite.
Toward is a village near Dunoon, Scotland, at the southern tip of the Cowal peninsula.
During World War II, the Toward area was a training centre called HMS Brontosaurus also known as the No 2 Combined Training Centre (CTC), based at Castle Toward.
Nearby is Castle Toward, a former country house built close to the ruined Toward Castle. Castle Toward was used as an outdoor education centre. The grounds were also used as a location for the children's BBC TV series Raven. Sold by Argyll and Bute Council to a private individual in 2016.
Toward Point has one of the eighteen lighthouses built by Robert Stevenson.
The Highland Boundary Fault passes Toward, as it crosses Scotland from Isle of Arran in the west to Stonehaven on the east coast. The geological fault line formed around 430 million years ago.
Sports
Toward Sailing Club provides racing, cruising and training.
Cowal is a rugged peninsula in Argyll and Bute, on the west coast of Scotland. It is bounded on the west by Loch Fyne and on the east by Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde. The Kyles of Bute separate it from the Isle of Bute to the south.
The northern part of the peninsula is covered by Argyll Forest Park and also includes the Arrochar Alps. In the south, the peninsula is divided into three forks by Loch Striven and Loch Riddon.
Cowal's only burgh is Dunoon in the south-east, from which ferries sail to Gourock in Inverclyde. Other ferries run from Portavadie in the west to Tarbert in Kintyre, and from Colintraive in the south to Rhubodach on Bute.
Much of Cowal was once held by the Lamonts clan. Later, the Campbells came to be one of the most powerful families in Cowal.
Cowal's underlying geology is made up largely of resistant metamorphic rocks, but south of the Highland Boundary Fault part of the Toward peninsula is composed of sedimentary rocks. The landscape is mountainous, the high ground dominated by moorland, peat mosses and the forest that often extends down the sides of the sea lochs to the water's edge. The acreage of improved farmland is small. Most land is owned by estates or the Forestry and Land Scotland except in the more settled areas.
The coast is mostly rocky and the few beaches are mostly shingle and gravel except on Loch Fyne: the longest sandy beach is at Ardentinny on Loch Long. The only lowland areas are around the coast where most of the settlement is found, particularly around Dunoon, Cowal's largest settlement on the Firth of Clyde. Other settlements include Innellan, Sandbank, Kilmun, Strone, Arrochar, Lochgoilhead, Tighnabruaich, Kames and Strachur.
The A83 trunk road crosses the northern end of the peninsular passing Arrochar at the head of Loch Long and Cairndow near the head of Loch Fyne. It partly follows or runs parallel to William Caulfield's historic military road that takes its name, Rest and Be Thankful from the stone seat erected at the summit at the head of Glen Croe. As the A83 has been subject to landslips, the old route has been used as a diversionary route. The other A roads are the A815 which links the A83 with Dunoon via Strachur where the A886 leaves it and heads south via Glendaruel to Colintraive where the ferry connects it to the Isle of Bute and the A8003 which links Tighnabruaich to the A886. Other roads are secondary B roads, narrow roads or tracks.
At Colintraive the Caledonian MacBrayne vehicle ferry takes five minutes to cross the 400-yard (370-metre) strait to Rhubodach on Bute. The ferry from Portavadie to Tarbert on Kintyre across Loch Fyne takes 25 minutes. A passenger-only service operated by Caledonian MacBrayne connects Dunoon to Gourock in Inverclyde where there is easy access the ScotRail train service to Glasgow Central railway station. Western Ferries operates a high-frequency vehicle carrying service between Hunters Quay, near Dunoon, and McInroy's Point, on the outskirts of Gourock in Inverclyde.
The NCR75 links Dunoon and Portavadie on Cowal. The NRC75 route originates at Edinburgh and Tarbert on the Kintyre peninsula. The National Cycle Network is maintained by sustrans.
Route across Cowal, traveling from east to west. After catching the ferry from Gourock to cross the upper Firth of Clyde to Dunoon. The route continues along the Cowal peninsula coast, passing the Holy Loch and Sandbank. Then travels through Glen Lean to the head of Loch Striven at Ardtaraig. Then passes the Kyles of Bute passing through Tighnabruaich, to Portavadie. From where another ferry crosses Loch Fyne, connecting the route onto the Kintyre peninsula at Tarbert. On the Kintyre peninsula you can join the National Cycle Route 78 (The Caledonia Way).
Evidence of early occupation of the area is in the form of cairns or burial mounds. One example is a Bronze Age cairn from between about 2000 BC and 800 BC is situated close to the summit of Creag Evanachan, 195 metres (640 ft) above sea level overlooking Loch Fyne. It is a mound of stones about 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter and up to 2 metres (6.6 ft) high. Another is the cairn at Dunchraigaig which is 195 feet (59 m) in diameter and was first excavated in 1864. At the south end a cist contained the deposits of burnt bones from eight or ten bodies. A smaller cist in the centre contained a bowl, burnt bone, charcoal and flint chips, and in the clay below them, the remains of a burial. A third even smaller cist also contained a food bowl, burnt bones and flint chips. A whetstone, flint knife, fragments of pottery and a greenstone axe were also found.
When the Irish invaded the region, it became part of their kingdom of Dal Riata. The Cenél Comgaill, a kin group within Dal Riata, controlled the Cowal peninsula, which consequently took their name (evolving over time from Comgaill to Cowal). Prior to this, little is known, except as revealed archaeologically, though the region may have been part of the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu.
Following a subsequent invasion by Norsemen, the Hebridean islands of Dal Riata became the Kingdom of the Isles, which following Norwegian unification became part of Norway, as Suðreyjar (historically anglicised as Sodor). The remaining parts of Dal Riata attracted the name Argyle (later Argyll), in reference to their ethnicity. In an unclear manner, the kingdom of Alba was founded elsewhere by groups originating from Argyll, and expanded to include Argyll itself.
However, an 11th-century Norse military campaign led to the formal transfer of Lorn, Islay, Kintyre, Knapdale, Bute, and Arran, to Suðreyjar. This left Alba with no part of Argyll except Cowal, and the land between Loch Awe and Loch Fyne. After Alba united with Moray, over the course of the century, it became Scotland. In 1326, a sheriff was appointed for the Scottish parts of Argyll.
Although, following the Treaty of Perth, Suðreyjar's successor state, the Lordship of the Isles, fell under the nominal authority of the Scottish king, it was not until 1475 that it was merged with Scotland (the occasion being the punishment of its ruler for an anti-Scottish conspiracy). The sheriffdom of Argyll was expanded to include the adjacent mainland areas from the Lordship. Following local government reforms in the 19th century, the traditional provinces were formally abolished, in favour of counties aligned with sheriffdoms, so Cowal became merely a part of the county of Argyll.
The history of the Cowal is tied into the clans who inhabited it. Seemingly, in the 11th century, an unidentified heiress of the Cenel Comgaill married Anrothan, grandson of the king of the Cenél nEógain, from Ulster. Clan traditions argue that Anrothan's lands were passed down to a descendant named Aodha Alainn O'Neil, who had the following sons:
Neil, who founded the MacNeil of Argyll, who were castellans of Castle Sween in Knapdale, on behalf of the Lords of the Isles. The MacNeil of Barra claim to be related to them, though how they came to be involved with Barra is unclear.
Gillachrist, whose son was:
Lachlan Mor, who founded Clan MacLachlan, who ruled from Castle Lachlan, on the Loch Fyne coast
Dunslebhe, whose sons were:
Ewen, who founded Clan Ewen of Otter, who ruled from Castle MacEwen, in the Kilfinan peninsula
Fearchar, who founded Clan MacKerracher, renamed Clan Lamont after 1235, after Lauman, the then chief. Clan Lamont ruled from Toward Castle, in the Toward peninsula.
Excavations carried out at Castle MacEwen showed the site had several stages of development before it was the defended medieval homestead of the MacEwens; at first there was a palisaded enclosure, and then a promontory fort with a timber rampart.
The remote areas in the north east of Cowal, which were theoretically under the dominion of Clan Lamont, were used by Scottish kings for hunting; indeed, Cowal was the last part of Britain to have wild boar. When King John Balliol was threatened by his rival, Robert de Bruys, Balliol's ally, the king of England, established Henry Percy at Carrick Castle, in the region; likewise Dunoon Castle further south. De Bruys expelled the English from Cowal, with the aid of the Campbells (who were based nearby at Loch Awe), and eventually defeated Balliol. De Bruy's son gave Carrick Castle to the Campbells, while, after spending some time as a direct Royal possession, Dunoon Castle was handed to them by James III, who made the Campbells its Honorary Keepers.
During the civil war between Royalists and Puritans, the Campbells had sided with the Puritans, so following their defeat at the Battle of Inverlochy, Clan Lamont took the opportunity to push back the borders of Campbell control. Predictably, in 1646, the Campbells took revenge, and overran Toward Castle; after being offered hospitability, the Campbells slaughtered the Lamont occupants in their beds. Despite the chief of the Lamonts surrendering, the Campbells hanged many members of Clan Lamont, in what became known as the Dunoon massacre.
By contrast, the next chief of the Campbells, the son of the former chief, was a Royalist, so after the restoration of Royalist rule, the Campbells were not ultimately dispossessed of their gains. However, after James VII came to the Scottish throne, the Campbells revolted, and the chief was executed, but his son, the new chief, took part in the successful expulsion of James VII, so the Campbells once again ultimately retained their lands.
After the Jacobite rising of 1715 when James Francis Edward Stuart attempted to regain the throne, the lack of roads in the Highlands prevented the British army from advancing to quell areas of unrest. General Wade was tasked with implementing a programme to build military roads from north-central Scotland through the Highlands to the forts in the Great Glen. They were constructed by officers and soldiers. William Caulfeild succeeded Wade in 1740 and constructed the road from Dumbarton via Tarbet to Inveraray through the Cowal where it is known as the "Rest and Be Thankful".
In Victorian times tourism began to take hold on the Clyde coast. Steam propulsion started in 1812 and by the end of the 19th century, paddle steamers ferried thousands of Glaswegians doon the watter from Broomielaw in the city centre to holiday resorts including Dunoon on the Cowal.
The Loch Lomond and Cowal Way stretches for over 57 miles (92 kilometres) through Cowal, from Portavadie on the southeastern shore of Loch Fyne leading to Inveruglas on Loch Lomond, in the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
The Cowal Highland Gathering, the annual highland games, are held annually in Dunoon stadium on the last Friday/Saturday of August.
Asgog Castle, ruin, next to Asgog Loch, Millhouse, Kilfinan Parish.
Auchenbreck Castle (no longer standing), Kilmodan, Glendaruel
Carrick Castle (private), Carrick Castle
Dunans Castle (ruin, fire damage), Glendaruel
Dunoon Castle (no longer standing), Dunoon
Knockamillie Castle, ruin, Innellan
New Castle Lachlan (private), Strathlachlan
Old Castle Lachlan (ruin), Strathlachlan
Castle MacEwen (no longer standing), Kilfinan
Castle Toward (private), Toward
Toward Castle (ruin), in the grounds of Castle Toward
There is another world, but it is in this one. - William Butler Yeats
society6.com/elenakulikova/Agate-a-vivid-Metamorphic-rock...
Epidote monoclinic crystals in a sample that shows almost all the common colors in this mineral.
Prismatic striation habit at the lower right area
Sample: Of my own collection. and kevin blanco´s collection from CEDUC UCN institute.
Location: Coquimbo - IV Region - Chile
Epidote is a calcium aluminium iron sorosilicate mineral.
Many of the characters of the mineral vary with the amount of iron present for instance, the color, the optical constants, and the specific gravity. The color is green, grey, brown or nearly black, but usually a characteristic shade of yellowish-green or pistachio-green. It displays strong pleochroism, the pleochroic colors being usually green, yellow and brown.
Epidote is an abundant rock-forming mineral, but one of secondary origin. It occurs in marble and schistose rocks of metamorphic origin. It is also a product of hydrothermal alteration of various minerals (feldspars, micas, pyroxenes, amphiboles, garnets, and others) composing igneous rocks. A rock composed of quartz and epidote is known as epidosite. Well-developed crystals are found at many localities: Knappenwand, near the Großvenediger in the Untersulzbachthal in Salzburg, as magnificent, dark green crystals of long prismatic habit in cavities in epidote schist, with asbestos, adularia, calcite, and apatite; the Ala valley and Traversella in Piedmont; Arendal in Norway; Le Bourg-d'Oisans in Dauphiné; Haddam in Connecticut; Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, here as large, dark green, tabular crystals with copper ores in metamorphosed limestone.
The perfectly transparent, dark green crystals from the Knappenwand and from Brazil have occasionally been cut as gemstones.
Eclogite from the Middle Paleozoic of Norway.
This is eclogite, an attractive, uncommon, crystalline-textured, very high-grade metamorphic rock. The reddish mineral is garnet (pyrope or almandine) and the green is omphacite pyroxene. Also present is whitish-gray quartz, bluish kyanite, minor mica, tiny rutile crystals, and minor blackish-colored amphibole.
Eclogites form in the mantle, but occur in few places at the Earth’s surface. These rocks have the same chemistry, but different mineralogy, as basalts and gabbros (= oceanic crustal rocks). Eclogites form by very high grade metamorphism of oceanic crust at mantle depths along subduction zones. Uplift of eclogites back to the surface usually involves some retrograde metamorphism and the formation of new minerals, resulting in retrograde eclogites.
The eclogite seen here dates to the Late Silurian to Early Devonian (~400-423 Ma), when Proterozoic-aged protolith rocks were subjected to very high-grade burial metamorphism. This took place during the Scandian Orogeny, a mountain building event that involved oceanic lithosphere adjacent to ancient Baltica (= the ancient Scandinavian continent) being subducted beneath Laurentia (= the ancient North American-Greenland continent). Eclogites were brought back to upper crustal levels during the Devonian portion of the Caledonian Orogeny (~383-404 Ma).
Locality: Almenningen, Vågsøy, Kinn, Vestland, southwestern Norway
Same old ingredients made into a different cake. Slow heat and pressure rearranges almost any kind of rock into foliated minerals (gneiss) or layers (migmatite). Mother Nature's putty. Polished panel at the entrance to the Vale Gallery, Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada.
Pls see my Geology ABCs gallery for more about what rocks have to tell us, as shared by flickrites near and far.
Climbing down Jubilee Hill towards Wyche Cutting a narrow pass through the Malvern Hills, with the ascent to the top of Worcestershire Beacon (the tallest of the Hills), in the background. The Malvern Hills run approximately 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north-south along the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border.
The Malvern Hills are a range of hills in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern. The highest summit of the hills affords a panorama of the Severn valley with the hills of Herefordshire and the Welsh mountains, parts of thirteen counties, the Bristol Channel, and the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford.
The name Malvern is probably derived from the ancient British moel-bryn, meaning "Bare-Hill", the nearest modern equivalent being the Welsh moelfryn (bald hill). It has been known as Malferna (11th century), Malverne (12th century), and Much Malvern (16–17th century). Jabez Allies, a 19th Century antiquarian from Worcestershire speculated that 'vern' was derived from the British words 'Sarn' or 'Varn' meaning pavement or seat of judgement.
They are known for their spring water – initially made famous by the region's many holy wells, and later through the development of the 19th century spa town of Great Malvern, a process which culminated in the production of the modern bottled Malvern Water.
The Hills have been designated as a Biological and Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest and as national character area 103 by Natural England and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty by the Countryside Agency (now Natural England). The SSSI notification has 26 units of assessment which cover grassland, woodland and geological sites. The site (The Malvern Hills SSSI (Chase End Hill)) is listed in the 'Forest of Dean Local Plan Review' as a Key Wildlife Site (KWS). Management of the hills is the responsibility of the Malvern Hills Conservators
Flint axes, arrowheads, and flakes found in the area are attributed to early Bronze Age settlers, and the 'Shire Ditch', a late Bronze Age boundary earthwork possibly dating from around 1000 BC, was constructed along part of the crest of the hills near the site of later settlements. The Wyche Cutting, a mountain pass through the hills was in use in prehistoric times as part of the salt route from Droitwich to South Wales. A 19th century discovery of over two hundred metal money bars suggests that the area had been inhabited by the La Tène people around 250 BC. Ancient folklore has it that the British chieftain Caractacus made his last stand against the Romans at the British Camp, a site of extensive Iron Age earthworks on a summit of the Malvern Hills close to where Malvern was to be later established.
J.R.R. Tolkien found inspiration in the Malvern landscape which he had viewed from his childhood home in Birmingham and his brother Hilary's home near Evesham. He was introduced to the area by C. S. Lewis, who had brought him here to meet George Sayer, the Head of English at Malvern College. Sayer had been a student of Lewis, and became his biographer, and together with them Tolkien would walk the Malvern Hills. Recordings of Tolkien reading excerpts from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were made in Malvern in 1952, at the home of George Sayer. The recordings were later issued on long-playing gramophone records. In the liner notes for J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings his The Hobbit & The Fellowship of the Ring, George Sayer wrote that Tolkien would relive the book as they walked and compared parts of the Malvern Hills to the White Mountains of Gondor.
Melting metamorphic boulder halted in its slide back into primordial Archean granite soup. Thereafter, perhaps 10 vertical km of Proterozoic and Paleozoic cover rocks were removed by erosion for exposure at surface. Hence the striped tabby grin from a fading Cheshire Cat. Same xenolithic islet as before.
Paul Ewing has been gracious to allow me to take portions of one of his fabulous pictures and make new images. In this collaboration, I imposed two constraints on myself: square format and a series of five.
Granite was chosen as the project title because Paul's original work reminds me of granite, perhaps gneiss, with mica and quartz inclusions. Sparkly and metamorphic, yet created in heat.
made up of grey gneisses, granites, clear quartz, pink and white feldspar, shiny black and white mica
Loch Tarff is a small freshwater loch approximately 1.25 km (0.78 mi) from the southeastern shore of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands.
The loch is located in the hills that rise steeply from the eastern shore of Loch Ness and has an elevation of 292 metres (958 ft) ASL. It has a surface area of approximately 500,000 square metres with a prominent inlet to the northwest and a smaller inlet to the southwest. The loch is fed by a number of small streams, most of which enter its northeastern shore from the southern slopes of Beinn a' Bhacaidh. There are a number of islets in the loch, the largest of which, Eilean Ban, lies near its northeastern shore.
Geological evidence indicates that the loch was formed in the last Ice Age approximately 10,000 years ago, and is the result of glaciation that scoured the landscape. The surrounding rock is metamorphic, mostly schists, although there are also sedimentary conglomerates formed from the metamorphic and igneous strata in the fault scarp that comprises the Great Glen. Glacial sediments can be found to the south of the loch around the southern shore of Loch Ness.
By car, the loch is approximately 6.0 km (3.7 mi) from Fort Augustus, and is accessible by the B862 road, which runs along the eastern shore of the loch.
For walkers, the loch is located on the South Loch Ness Trail, approximately one and a half to two hours via an ascending route that rises 280 metres (920 ft) with two moderate inclines from the southern shore of Loch Ness at Fort Augustus.
Footage of the loch was used in the 1983 film Local Hero (in the scene immediately following the rabbit and the fog; the lead character's car, a Ford Cortina is stopped on the road). The scene is taken from the B862 looking westward and some of the loch's islets can be seen in the background.
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.
The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.
Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.
Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".
Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".
Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.
Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.
In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.
When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.
The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.
Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.
According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".
The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.
For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.
In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.
A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.
Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.
The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.
There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.
Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.
The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.
These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.
The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.
Climate
The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.
Places of interest
An Teallach
Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)
Arrochar Alps
Balmoral Castle
Balquhidder
Battlefield of Culloden
Beinn Alligin
Beinn Eighe
Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station
Ben Lomond
Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Cairngorms National Park
Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore
Cairngorm Mountains
Caledonian Canal
Cape Wrath
Carrick Castle
Castle Stalker
Castle Tioram
Chanonry Point
Conic Hill
Culloden Moor
Dunadd
Duart Castle
Durness
Eilean Donan
Fingal's Cave (Staffa)
Fort George
Glen Coe
Glen Etive
Glen Kinglas
Glen Lyon
Glen Orchy
Glenshee Ski Centre
Glen Shiel
Glen Spean
Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)
Grampian Mountains
Hebrides
Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.
Highland Wildlife Park
Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Jail
Inverness Castle
Inverewe Garden
Iona Abbey
Isle of Staffa
Kilchurn Castle
Kilmartin Glen
Liathach
Lecht Ski Centre
Loch Alsh
Loch Ard
Loch Awe
Loch Assynt
Loch Earn
Loch Etive
Loch Fyne
Loch Goil
Loch Katrine
Loch Leven
Loch Linnhe
Loch Lochy
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
Loch Lubnaig
Loch Maree
Loch Morar
Loch Morlich
Loch Ness
Loch Nevis
Loch Rannoch
Loch Tay
Lochranza
Luss
Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran
Rannoch Moor
Red Cuillin
Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83
River Carron, Wester Ross
River Spey
River Tay
Ross and Cromarty
Smoo Cave
Stob Coire a' Chàirn
Stac Polly
Strathspey Railway
Sutherland
Tor Castle
Torridon Hills
Urquhart Castle
West Highland Line (scenic railway)
West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)
Wester Ross
The rock ledges exposed at Two Lights State Park represent the current stage of a very long and dynamic geologic history. The rock that makes up the ledges is classified as metamorphic rock, which means that at one time it was affected by heat and pressure inside the earth which has significantly changed its form. Before metamorphism it was sedimentary rock, which had formed originally by hardening of deep-sea sediment (sand and mud) into rock.
420 million years ago, Silurian Period: Sediment accumulated in a deep ocean basin. This basin lay between the edge of North America to the west, which at the time ran approximately from Flagstaff Lake to northern Moosehead Lake, and an ancient small continent to the east, the microcontinent called Avalon.
The layers of sediment that accumulated in that Silurian ocean are preserved in the rocks at Two Lights as light gray, massive quartzite and dark gray phyllite layers. The quartzite layers were originally sand or silt beds, and the phyllite layers were originally clay or mud beds. As the layers accumulated one on the other, some were deposited individually with sharp boundaries between them, and others were deposited as mixed masses in graded beds that change gradually from the bottom to the top of the layer.
All the rocks at Two Lights State Park belong to a single geologic formation. Geologists in the early 1900's referred to it as the Cape Elizabeth Formation, but geologists now think that these rocks are part of the Kittery Formation , which is found along the southern Maine coast and into New Hampshire.
Source: maine.gov
September 5, 2012, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, taken here.
Loch Tarff is a small freshwater loch approximately 1.25 km (0.78 mi) from the southeastern shore of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands.
The loch is located in the hills that rise steeply from the eastern shore of Loch Ness and has an elevation of 292 metres (958 ft) ASL. It has a surface area of approximately 500,000 square metres with a prominent inlet to the northwest and a smaller inlet to the southwest. The loch is fed by a number of small streams, most of which enter its northeastern shore from the southern slopes of Beinn a' Bhacaidh. There are a number of islets in the loch, the largest of which, Eilean Ban, lies near its northeastern shore.
Geological evidence indicates that the loch was formed in the last Ice Age approximately 10,000 years ago, and is the result of glaciation that scoured the landscape. The surrounding rock is metamorphic, mostly schists, although there are also sedimentary conglomerates formed from the metamorphic and igneous strata in the fault scarp that comprises the Great Glen. Glacial sediments can be found to the south of the loch around the southern shore of Loch Ness.
By car, the loch is approximately 6.0 km (3.7 mi) from Fort Augustus, and is accessible by the B862 road, which runs along the eastern shore of the loch.
For walkers, the loch is located on the South Loch Ness Trail, approximately one and a half to two hours via an ascending route that rises 280 metres (920 ft) with two moderate inclines from the southern shore of Loch Ness at Fort Augustus.
Footage of the loch was used in the 1983 film Local Hero (in the scene immediately following the rabbit and the fog; the lead character's car, a Ford Cortina is stopped on the road). The scene is taken from the B862 looking westward and some of the loch's islets can be seen in the background.
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.
The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.
Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.
Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".
Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".
Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.
Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.
In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.
When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.
The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.
Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.
According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".
The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.
For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.
In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.
A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.
Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.
The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.
There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.
Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.
The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.
These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.
The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.
Climate
The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.
Places of interest
An Teallach
Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)
Arrochar Alps
Balmoral Castle
Balquhidder
Battlefield of Culloden
Beinn Alligin
Beinn Eighe
Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station
Ben Lomond
Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Cairngorms National Park
Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore
Cairngorm Mountains
Caledonian Canal
Cape Wrath
Carrick Castle
Castle Stalker
Castle Tioram
Chanonry Point
Conic Hill
Culloden Moor
Dunadd
Duart Castle
Durness
Eilean Donan
Fingal's Cave (Staffa)
Fort George
Glen Coe
Glen Etive
Glen Kinglas
Glen Lyon
Glen Orchy
Glenshee Ski Centre
Glen Shiel
Glen Spean
Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)
Grampian Mountains
Hebrides
Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.
Highland Wildlife Park
Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Jail
Inverness Castle
Inverewe Garden
Iona Abbey
Isle of Staffa
Kilchurn Castle
Kilmartin Glen
Liathach
Lecht Ski Centre
Loch Alsh
Loch Ard
Loch Awe
Loch Assynt
Loch Earn
Loch Etive
Loch Fyne
Loch Goil
Loch Katrine
Loch Leven
Loch Linnhe
Loch Lochy
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
Loch Lubnaig
Loch Maree
Loch Morar
Loch Morlich
Loch Ness
Loch Nevis
Loch Rannoch
Loch Tay
Lochranza
Luss
Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran
Rannoch Moor
Red Cuillin
Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83
River Carron, Wester Ross
River Spey
River Tay
Ross and Cromarty
Smoo Cave
Stob Coire a' Chàirn
Stac Polly
Strathspey Railway
Sutherland
Tor Castle
Torridon Hills
Urquhart Castle
West Highland Line (scenic railway)
West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)
Wester Ross
Photographs from the book 'Finding Lost Time'. This slideshow was projected by the Terra de Ningu photography collective at the Can Basté Civic Centre in Barcelona.
The music is 'Sunart' and 'Pylonesque' (Broken mix) from christ.'s album 'Metamorphic Reproduction Miracle' on Benbecula Records.
See also:
losttimefoundagain.blogspot.com
Watch this video on Vimeo. Video created by Andrew Conroy.